QuickNote: create OneNote notes on the fly

[jpijper]

QuickNote

Overview

QuickNote is a small utility I have written that makes it possible to quickly create Microsoft OneNote notes, without using Microsoft OneNote itself. For instance, say that you are working in Microsoft Word and you suddenly remember that you still need to plan a meeting with Peter. To turn this into an OneNote note, normally you would switch to OneNote, go to the proper notebook and section, create a new page, type the note, and switch back to Word. Using QuickNote, you simply hit the Win-R hotkey and type "note Plan meeting with Peter". You never even leave Word.

Background

I use OneNote in my implementation of David Allen's "Getting Things Done". I have a section called "Inbox" in a notebook "GTD" where I capture all kinds of stuff for later processing. This utility makes it easy to quickly capture any random thoughts, inspirations and ideas to my GTD Inbox.

Installation and Prerequisites

• The archive contains just the executable itself: note.exe, a config file and a readme file. Extract the executable and config file to a folder in your path, for instance the Windows folder.
  
• This utility was written for OneNote 2010. Both OneNote 2010 and the .NET Framework 4 must be installed.

Basic usage

To use the utility, hit Win-R to get a command prompt, and then type something like: "note This is a note" (without the quotes). This creates a new OneNote page in the "Unfiled notes" section, with the title "This is a note".
 
Switches

The following switches are available:
 
/d or /disp or /display   Display the note  in OneNote after creating it
/s or /sect or /section   Specify the section where this note should be put
/set or /setting or /settings   Display the settings window
/h or /help or /?   Display some help
 
Settings

The following settings can be changed through the Settings dialogue (note /set):
 

• Beeps: whether or not the system should beep to confirm note creation.
  
• Confirmation dialogs: whether or not note creation is confirmed with a message box.
  
• Target Section: the section where notes will be created by default.

Examples

note Plan meeting with Peter
note Plan meeting with Peter /disp
note Plan meeting with Peter /section todo
note /set

Notes

• Very nice to use as an alias in FARR.
  
• There is a similar utility, called "QuickOutlookTask" that quickly creates Outlook tasks and appointments (http://jpijper.dcmem...uickOutlookTask.html).

[IainB]

@jpijper: Sorry, I don't quite follow this. In any application, I use Windows+n to bring up an untitled OneNote page. So what would be the advantage of "QuickNote"?

[jpijper]

@jpijper: Sorry, I don't quite follow this. In any application, I use Windows+n to bring up an untitled OneNote page. So what would be the advantage of "QuickNote"?

-IainB (August 03, 2010, 05:10 AM)

Hi IainB,

Thanks for your interest! For me there are two main advantages:

1. I want to be able to jot down the quick note with a minimum of distraction from the task I am working on. I found even doing it through the side window with Win+N too distracting. With QuickNote, I just type the note, hit Enter and am right back where I was. I never get to see the OneNote interface and there is no window to close.

2. With QuickNote, I can set the default target section for the quick notes. The side note is always a page in Unfiled notes, and I want my quick notes to go to my GTD / Inbox section.

These seem like small things, but they make quick note taking a snappier experience for me.

Jan Roelof

[mouser]

ooh nice! will we get a farr alias for this too? please

Very nice to use as an alias in FARR.

ah i  see you are way ahead of me!

[jpijper]

ooh nice! will we get a farr alias for this too? please

Very nice to use as an alias in FARR.

ah i  see you are way ahead of me!

-mouser (August 03, 2010, 06:49 AM)

Thanks Mouser!

I plan to offer this as a FARR alias as well, but I have to re-discover how this works again, with dcupdater and stuff.
Did you get my request for a reminder of my dcmember credentials?

Jan Roelof

[mouser]

Did you get my request for a reminder of my dcmember credentials?

yep, thought i replied to that already -- i've had my head buried in coding last couple of weeks and have been so distracted lately.

[valuex]

Can you make Quicknote compatible with onenote 2011?It would be great if it works, thanks.

[jpijper]

Assuming that you mean OneNote 2013, it works fine with that.

[spam spam bacon spam]

QuickNote

Overview

QuickNote is a small utility I have written that makes it possible to quickly create Microsoft OneNote notes, without using Microsoft OneNote itself.

-jpijper (August 03, 2010, 02:15 AM)

Just a note (haha) to let you know I nearly live in OneNote and have found NOTHING even remotely as useful as this utility.
I have 5 machines and they all have this executable.

I do not like OneNote's concept of a quick note.  Screen real estate is precious, but not only that, I have ADHD and your utility is MUCH better for people like me.  Because OneNote's quick note actually pops up and requires interaction, I risk losing the very precious focus/train-of-thought for what I was doing and starting to follow that momentary thought I wanted to get out of my head, in the first place!

MS should implement this, after remunerating you well.

Cheers,
and thanks again!

~spamster
 

[jpijper]

Hi Spamster,

Thank you! You just made my day.
I too still use this all the time.

Enjoy!
Jan Roelof